8 Trials Deep

CHAPTER 5: A PREDATOR A HUMAN BEING

“I want a binding contract,” M-89 said.

M-6 nodded to B-5687. The latter promptly added a 10% auction share and sent the updated contract to M-89’s virtual computer address. After checking the contract in his MA, M-89 knocked on the tinted glass. B-5687 immediately understood and reverted the glass to its original transparency.

“Any minute now,” the projection said as he looked on towards the back exit of the Knight’s Tavern. A few minutes passed before the door budged. An attendant opened the door and bowed to the leaving figures.

A pock-marked overweight man and a shorter woman stepped out of the exit.

So it was these two, M-6 thought. He had previously given them just a passing look and ignored them all throughout.

Truly, one should not judge a book by its cover, specially an avatar.

M-6 turned towards the child huddled in the corner, “Do you know those people?”

The child turned wide-eyed upon receiving M-6’s attention. But upon realizing that it did not do her good to be silent, she craned her neck to look towards the people outside the vehicle.

She answered with a shake of her head. She never forgot any of the faces she saw and she was sure she never saw the two.

“It’s probably the man’s assistant who did the tampering,” M-89 remarked while looking scornfully at the plain-looking overweight man standing beside her. “Have you made any new enemies or competitors lately?”

“I’m always making new enemies. However, this is my first time seeing them, either in person or in images of rival businesses I had investigated.”

“We tried pinning it on them but the tampering was done too well. There were no data footprints at all. Either this has been a pre-meditated plan or the perpetrator is just a skilled hacker.”

M-6 studied the two figures for a while before suddenly remembering something. He urgently looked towards the opposite projection and blurted out, “Who got the Magus Coder and what did they offer?”

M-89 smiled knowingly before replying, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer that even if I wanted to. The offer was indeed too good we even had to turn away the Visus alliance. They came with the same queries. Make sure to get a legal commodity next time, we won’t always be covering your relapses.”

After issuing his cautionary remark, M-89’s projection vanished. He had cut the communication.

M-6 slammed his fist against the side table. It toppled and fell on the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. The girl was startled but she did not utter any sound, just looked at him from the corner.

“Call the men and send them after the two,” M-6 brusquely ordered.

B-5687 got busy with contacting his fellow bondservants. These lots were usually assigned to do the dirty work. Not long after an aircraft arrived and hovered beside them, it was full of sturdy-looking men. They looked like they had gone through countless scuffles.

“Follow those two and find an opening to capture them. See that they can still talk when I interrogate them,” M-6 ordered the men. A tall bondservant nodded, he appeared to be the leader of the brood.

The two who were being followed seemed to be oblivious of their tails. They wandered around the city particularly on the sections where stalls were set-up to display varying merchandise. It seemed that they had quite a shopping list, going from stalls that sold fabric to stalls that served food then to stalls that boasted flowery displays.

Under the eyes from the sky, the man appeared to offer the woman three red roses. The woman responded by squinting at him. These two were like a pair of butterflies fluttering gaily in a garden.

M-6 had a desire to reach out and pluck off their wings.

When dusk began to settle the two finally found a pub and went in. M-6 motioned for his men to follow them. The vehicles alighted outside the park and one by one the men poured into the pub, M-6 went in last.

Once the men entered they saw the two seated at the fireplace, legs stretched out, warm and cozy. The woman in particular was playing with a cat, rolling a silver ball idly. She had a rose tucked on her head of hair.

Meanwhile the other customer seemed to have sensed the change in atmosphere and silently withdrew to the side and bowed out through the back entrance. Incidents like these were not unusual.

With a signal from their leader the bondservants spread through the room in a well-coordinated manner, seemingly having done it several times. One attempted to sneak on the woman’s side. They could use her as a hostage to keep her companion from putting on a fight. The men slowly closed in on the unsuspecting couple.

The fireplace turned into chaos as the attacking men dove right into the fire or toppled over furniture. The man and the woman still sat idly, resuming their languid positions.

M-6 picked up a small circular object that flew to his feet amidst the confusion, it was a projector. One M-6 had never seen before. It looked no bigger than a cookie with its center part encrusted with a big jewel. The stone seemed to blink with red lights in succession. Seeing this, the tall man quickly ran to M-6, grabbed it from his hand and threw it towards the farthest corner of the room.

It was a projector, yes, and an explosive device.

The pub exploded, shattering the relative silence of the settling night.

Moments later, four or five people staggered out of the almost collapsed doorway. M-6 was still catching his breath and assessing whether he received any critical injury when the cold temperature of a sharp metal pressed against his neck. The blade was paper-sharp that just by contact with his skin it already began to draw blood.

The four figures following him were knocked to the ground one by one before they could even take a step closer to their owner. The woman had sneaked in from the shadow and gave each one either a hit on the back of their neck or an explosive kick that seem to have broken a few bones.

“I could kill you right now,” a cold voice whispered on his ears. M-6 had no doubt the man indeed could slit his throat without a second thought. In fact, M-6 had a vague feeling the man wanted to.

Though being injured while in the virtual community didn’t necessarily mean he would retain the same wounds when he transmitted into his physical body, if the damage was critical his brain could still hold on to the memory of being injured and assign it to the physical body. This could trigger a shock, a heart attack or a stroke. The least of all possible evils was he would just suffer occasional phantom pains on wounds that were not really there.

M-6’s sweating body was pushed on the ground, face down. A foot rolled him to face the man they had formerly been tailing. The man had a murderous gleam on his eyes.

In a flood of ill-fated realization, M-6 connected the dots. The two had set them up. They thought they were the cat after the mice but in reality, the two had staged a drama waiting for them to fall on their own.

After all, if the sabotage during the auction of his commodity was really as well done as M-89 said, with no data footprints, how come the auction house was able to trace it to the two and spill it to him. He had been had.

The man threw the blade that still had M-6 blood dripping from it, visibly disgusted. Then he looked down on him.

“When you disengage from the virtual community meet me at the Data River at midnight sharp. Bring the girl unscathed. You may escape me in the physical dimension but I know you want the Magus coder. We’ll trade. If any harm comes to her, I will come after you and I will bury you with parts missing.”

Despite the creeping fear, M-9 looked towards their airlift vehicle where his assistant and a girl stood petrified. He doubted whether the girl was the same girl this man wanted to trade for something as precious as the coder.

“Yes, her,” the man said reading the doubt on his face. “Bring all the transfer documents signed and sealed. Transfer her custody under the name C-13. Now scram.”

M-6 did not wait to be told twice and hurriedly crawled away from the man before shakily walking towards the spherocopter.

The others also scrambled towards their escape vehicle when they saw the woman had no intention coming after them. Despite her height, just barely 5 feet, they had experienced her mastery of close combat. She was also cunning and quick on her feet, able to take four men alone.

M -6 glared at the fleeing men. He roared at his assistant to quickly send their vehicle flying while he turned to face the two standing at the square. Despite being overweight that he appeared short, the man had an imposing air around him. He looked at M-6 as if he was a prey the mouse set free just to capture again. A chill run through the M-6’s spine.

Fortunately, their ride had already drifted from the ground and began climbing some distance. M-6’s shifted his eyes from the two’s silhouette and focused them on the girl. He seemed to remember that her father assured she had no other guardian aside from him. Her only other relative was her older brother who was still in the academy.

He squinted his eyes and asked, “Girl, what is your brother’s name? The one in the academy.”

The girl seemed to hesitate before stuttering, “R-RF-13”

RF-13 followed the fleeing vehicle with his gaze until it was reduced to a sphere as big as a pomegranate. It proceeded to speed farther until it blended with other aerial transports and hidden by elaborate skyscrapers. He would have wanted to retrieve his sister from the man the soonest but it was futile. Her physical body was still within M-6’s control. All he could do was to secure her safety for now.

“I didn’t know you had it in you to kill in cold blood,” Leta said as she stepped beside him.

RF-13 gave her a brief glance before answering, “I would cut down anybody who tried to lay their hands on my family without a second thought. Funny how the ones we love bring out the monster in us.”

Leta had no reply to that. He was not expecting any.

A notice in bold red letters floated in RF-13’s vision:

“Your virtual experience is about to exceed one hour, do you wish to extend? Additional hour costs only 2 alliance currencies, promo expires in 24 hours. Avail now.”

RF-13 tapped the MA strapped on his wrist and transferred an additional 10 regiis currencies. Somewhere in the physical dimension an elfish-looking teen who was playing an outdated game on his monitor received a notification. Regiis currencies were deposited on his account. He then extended a customer’s gateway allotted time.

Once he confirmed that his hourglass still had some time running, RF-13 turned to Leta with a smile, “As usual, you are quite useful in a scuffle. Tomato, don’t tell me you actually grew up in the streets and is the leader of the local gang?”

Leta scoffed, “Don’t call me Tomato. If you want to praise me, praise me. Don’t be going in circles about it. Say it like a man.” She raised her chin haughtily, straightened her posture and squared her shoulders as if to show him how a real man ought to act.

RF-13 laughed. He bridged the gap between them and arranged the rose that had become askew on her hair. Then he looked at her square in the eyes and said, “Alright. You look gorgeous today, as always.”

The woman stood frozen, unsure how to react. After a few seconds, she stiffly turned her back to him and began marching away.

RF-13’s body shook in laughter, Leta’s ears were bright red. Like a luscious tomato.

It’s been a long time since I last laughed this hard, he thought to himself.